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I used to wonder how on earth anyone could support *. I just couldn't grasp the arrogance, the willingness to overlook all the evidence against him and his corrupt administration. Then I did some research that somewhat explained their rabid devotion to Bush and their party, which they obviously put above their country.
The following are excerpts from my research:
* They are nationalists placing their group or unit beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. No nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit.
* It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance. The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival organization, fills him with uneasiness which he can relieve only by making some sharp retort. It makes it possible for him/her to be more vulgar, more silly, more malignant, more dishonest.
* Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, imprisonment without trial, forgery, lies, deceit, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral color when it is committed by "our" side.
* The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them or denying that they ever occurred.
* A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one's own mind.
* They have an indifference to objective truth. One prod to the nerve of nationalism, and the intellectual decencies can vanish and the plainest facts can be denied. Most facts are grossly obvious if one's emotions do not happen to be involved: but to the nationalist they are intolerable, and so they have to be denied, and false theories constructed upon their denial.
* The point is that as soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged. And the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also. There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when "our" side commits it.
* Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case, even if one admits in an intellectual sense that it is unjustified -- still one cannot feel that it is wrong. Loyalty is involved, and so pity ceases to function.
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but a distinction must be drawn between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. Patriotism is a devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseperable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
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